This course covers techniques that can be used to analyse data with continuous and categorical variables. The course will begin with simple linear regression and then proceed with approaches that can be used with more than two variables such as multiple regression. ANOVA with interactions and blocking will also be covered. The course will end with techniques that address the analysis of binary or ordinal variables.

Wetlands in north-western Australia have significant national and international value since they sustain a large number of endemic Samphire, species growing under saline, waterlogged, and dry conditions.
We investigate the ecophysiological aspects of these succulent species using a combination of spectral measurements, pigment concentrations and environmental variables.

We correlated samphire tissue pigment concentrations with climatic data and determined the relationships between pigments and field spectroradiometer readings for Tecticornia indica, one of the dominant samphire species in WA. Tecticornia plants with visually different colour contained different pigment concentrations and reflected differentially the visible light, in particular at wavelengths between 500 and 700 nm.

The reflectance data obtained by the spectrometry indicated that spectral detection of pigments could be used to identify changes in plant pigments, as well as other changes in vegetation status produced by different stress drivers. This methodology offers a rapid/reliable approach to describe natural ecosystems and evaluate the impact of human activities in marshes and wetlands ecosystems.

Biography:

Victoria, Completed a PhD in Agronomy Sciences from University of Buenos Aires, Argentina. Her study area is the Ecohydrology of arid zones. Since 2011 I have worked with Dr Erik Veneklaass and Tim Colmer at the School of Plant Biology (UWA) on a project related to vegetation dynamics in areas affected by mining activities in the Pilbara’s region. she has work at different spatial scales, from leaf and plant and plot scale using both glasshouse and field experiments and remote sensing technologies.

PS* This seminar is free and open to the public & no RSVP required.

****All Welcome****

Thursday 18

17:00 - PUBLIC LECTURE - Reaching new heights: antioxidants in wheat : 10 years of research on how to enhance levels of antioxidant compounds in wheat

Cereals typically are not considered as dietary sources of antioxidants even though they can compare well with some berries known for their high antioxidant content. Wheat antioxidant levels vary substantially –even within a cultivar– across years and geographic location. Learning how to enhance levels of antioxidant compounds in wheat has been Professor Madl's research focus for over 10 years.

In his lecture, he talks about external events that can significantly increase antioxidant levels and about the search of chemical elicitors that trigger the same biosynthetic pathways.

He talks about his studies on mice which found that consumption of wheat bran with high antioxidant levels significantly decreased the occurrence of colon cancer in the mice.

His lecture also explores whether increased antioxidant levels in wheat enhance other compounds that express the same benefits in cancer suppression, such as phenolic compounds.

Associate Professor Mylne will describe a system that he established which allows the monitoring of the physical position of a gene within a nucleus by confocal microscopy. He will illustrate its use to monitor the dynamic changes in gene position for one particular Arabidopsis gene as it gets silenced by low temperature. The system allows monitoring a single gene's position in live whole plants.

Assoc. Prof. Mylne (PhD, Botany) worked at the John Innes Centre (2001-2005), using molecular genetics to study proteins that accelerate flowering in response to prolonged cold (vernalization). In 2006 he moved to the Division of Chemistry & Structural Biology at The Institute for Molecular Bioscience (IMB, UQ) where he held a QEII Fellowship (2008-2012) and was the inaugural John S. Mattick Fellow (2010-2012). In 2013 he joined the faculty at The University of Western Australia and took up an ARC Future Fellowship in the School of Chemistry & Biochemistry and The ARC Centre of Excellence in Plant Energy Biology. His research interests are protein evolution and the molecular mechanisms underlying the biosynthesis of bioactive peptides.

Friday 26

14:00 - ORATION - Three Minute Thesis Competition Final : An 80,000 word thesis would take 9 hours to present - their time 3 minutes!

The task for the 10 finalists is to give an engaging talk on their PhD topic and it's significance in language that everyone can understand - in just 3 minutes. The audience will vote for its People's Choice.

August 2013

Sunday 11

10:00 - OPEN DAY - 2013 Open Day : Join us for our Centenary Open Day and experience all that UWA has to offer

The International Institute for Tropical Agriculture (IITA)
sets clear targets: by 2020 its research efforts will have contributed to lifting 11 million Africans out of poverty and to restoring 7.5 million hectares of land into sustainable use.
IITA's Deputy Director General for Research, Prof Ylva Hilbur, will provide an overiew of: the institute's scientific focus, its priority areas for future investment, its role in the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR), its initiatives to build public/private partnerships and its activities to stimulate youth employment and entrepreneurship in the agricultural sector.

iVEC@UWA in conjunction with the iVEC Visualisation and Education program invite expressions of interest for hands on training using the Avizo or Amira 3D visualisation and analysis software, to be held during September/October.

The Visualisation Sciences Group (VSG) provided some introductory training to researchers across the iVEC partner institutions in April 2013 and this second round of proposed workshops are intended to build upon that earlier training. In particular this is an opportunity to arrange a session with one of the VSG team for one-on-one training targetting your particular research problem, ideally with a pre-arranged dataset of your own.

Friday 06

12:00 - OPEN DAY - Future Farm 2050 Field Day 2013 : The UWA Institute of Agriculture, Future Farm 2050 invites you to attend the 2013 Field Day on 6 September 2013

This course is aimed at anyone wishing to improve their survey questionnaires. This course is useful for both people new to questionnaire design and those who have experience and would like to extend their knowledge. It will be a benefit not only for people who anticipate designing a questionnaire in the future, but for those in the role of critiquing commissioned or existing research.

R is a free and extremely powerful language and software environment for statistical computing, data analysis, and graphics. The course is designed for those who have no experience with R, but have a basic understanding of statistics. The course will include:
Introduction to R: How to install R on your computer; basic R commands, how to use and understand the R help pages.
Data: Reading in data and data manipulation; summarising data; basic statistical analysis and fitting linear models.
Graphics and output: Basic plotting commands and how to customise your plots; how to export your plots and output in a user-friendly format.
Functions: Writing simple functions and flow control structures.

Heritability is often used by plant breeders and geneticists as a measure of a trial’s precision, or the
precision of a series of trials. For computing its main use is the response to selection.

Most formulas proposed for calculating heritability implicitly assume balanced data and independent
genotypic effects. While both of these assumptions are often violated in plant breeding trials, equations
assuming balanced data are still in common usage.

This talk reviews various approaches to assessing heritability and derived quantities for unbalanced plant
breeding trial data.
Furthermore, Professor Piepho will also discuss the related problem of assessing predictive accuracy in genomic selection.

January 2014

Tuesday 28

16:00 - SEMINAR - Glutathione: From the chloroplast to the nucleus and back : Seminar on the functions of glutathione in cellular redox homeostasis

The low molecular weight thiol antioxidant, reduced glutathione (GSH) is a multifunctional metabolite in plants. GSH is an important redox gatekeeper that maintains redox homeostasis. It also participates in oxidative signalling pathways that regulate gene expression and determine the outcome of plant responses to stress. GSH is synthesised in chloroplasts, from thence is transported to all the compartments of the cell including the nucleus.
Mutants lacking the chloroplast GSH transporters have a low cytosolic GSH poor and have impaired responses to pathogens. Inhibition of glutathione synthesis leads to decreases the redox potential of the cytosol and the nuclei and to marked changes in gene expression. Low GSH availability leads to failure of the apical root meristem because of an arrest of the cell cycle at G1. GSH is recruited and sequestered in the nucleus early in the cell cycle by mechanisms that remain to be identified. Interestingly, mutants in candidates for GSH binding on the nuclear pore complex show very strong repression of photosynthesis, especially under high light.
This talk will consider the functions of glutathione in cellular redox homeostasis and possible roles in signalling between the chloroplast and nucleus.

Further details of the courses are available at http://ivec.org/services/training

Courses are delivered in a face to face classroom style. Attendees are encouraged to bring and work on their own laptops. Staff from the Supercomputing Team will be facilitating so you can meet and chat with them.

Courses are free of charge and open to all, however places are limited.
Light refreshments and lunch will be provided on each day.
Any queries, please contact Dr Valerie Maxville – education@ivec.org.
Please complete the form to register for this training. Note that places are limited. If you are needing additional training before the end of the year, please contact Valerie to organise a small group session.

13:30 - WORKSHOP - Workshop: Setting Academic Standards for Agriculture : What should a graduate in agriculture know, understand and be able to do?

The AgLTAS project aims to develop a National Academic Standards Statement for agriculture – representing what a student in Agriculture and related disciplines should know, understand and be able to do on graduation.

You are invited to attend an upcoming workshop, led by Dr Tina Acuna from the University of Tasmania, to provide your valuable input on the Statement.

The aim of this course is to introduce you to basic statistics. It will cover descriptive statistics (means and standard deviations); data exploration; basic categorical data analysis; simple linear regression and basic analysis of variance (ANOVA). The statistical package SPSS will be used to illustrate the ideas demonstrated. The course will be held in a computer laboratory allowing participants to immediately apply the material covered through a series of practical examples.

A public lecture by Dr Peggy Fiedler, Director of the Natural Reserve System at the University of California.

In this lecture Professor Fiedler will provide context for understanding the role of field stations, marine laboratories and other protected areas by discussing specific examples of the UCNRS’s research programmes in advancing our general knowledge about the natural world, its general education programs with pre-college students, and its conservation partnerships with a large variety of NGOs, government agencies, and private individuals. Potential new partnerships within the five Mediterranean-ecosystem climate regions worldwide, including the Western Australia, will also be explored.

Peggy Fiedler is a plant conservation biologist, best known for her work on defining the nature of rarity in vascular plants. In the last decade, she has served as a senior research associate at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, and is currently working in a similar capacity with CENRM at The University of Western Australia Albany campus.